Author's Note: I think I still have about… four readers left. Maybe. And in an effort to help those few who don't want to go back and re-read this entire thing to remind yourselves what's going on, I'm taking this chapter to give you guys a complete-up-to-this-point story summary. It also helps me, as I don't really wanna go back and re-read everything either. For context, the story currently sits at the end of Act 2 of 4 (planned).
Don't skip this one entirely if you don't need the refresher, however – more current story tidbits will follow the summary, including a new Roman & Neo segment. Enjoy!
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Act 1:
Our tale begins with the arrival of another Ruby Rose – an older woman calling herself Carmine – who explains (or tries to) the existence of near-infinite alternate worlds. She studies them for a living and has recently found a way to travel between them. Team RWBY is understandably doubtful, and to prove the truth of her claims, Carmine brings even more copies of Ruby Rose into their world.
Rose arrives next, bringing with her a naivete and a pheromone imbalance. She also falls for Blake rather quickly. After that comes Red, a young man who fights more like Yang rather than Ruby. Then comes the adorable Cherry, who wins over everyone she meets. Sapphire arrives with a bit more drama than the others, mainly due to her appearance – she looks almost exactly like Winter, the older sister of Weiss. Last of all comes the child-like Ku, bringing with her the shadowy Thorn as her dark half, and the immortal Rain.
A total of eight Ruby Roses… with eight matching Cards that seemed to foretell their coming.
Carmine finally explains her reason for bringing everyone together in the first place at this point; three of the Rubys are vital to the survival of their respective timelines and they need a place to train themselves. Team RWBY's world, Remnant-1802, is the most stable option. The reason for this is simple, yet ominous – the survival of each and every world is entirely dependent on the survival of that world's Ruby Rose. If she dies, that world collapses.
Over the next two weeks, most of the Ruby Squad manages to bond with team RWBY in various ways. Red and Yang become like real siblings, Weiss accepts Sapphire for who she is and even enjoys her company to a degree, and Rose simply falls even harder for Blake. Ku, as Thorn, nearly kills Nora at one point and starts a battle in town that leads to a harsh punishment for the adult-child. Cherry ends up adopting Velvet and the rest of the second-year team CFVY as her Big Friends, and Carmine simply watches it all from the sidelines. Rain, however, remains detached from everyone.
Ruby feels left behind during it all, but Rain manages to help her through it with a few inspiring words. And after a rousing night of karaoke, team RWBY gives the Ruby Squad a fun send-off party. Everyone involved soon comes to terms with the imminent parting of ways, knowing that nothing will be the same.
Then the White Fang attacked, shattering the relative peace they were having.
Amity Stadium, along with several hostages, is taken by Adam Taurus. Qrow is sent in to rescue them – which he does, along with the help of his sister Raven. When it's over, Raven mentions that the man she fought wasn't really… alive at all. And he had Summer's eyes.
Team RWBY, along with Rain and Ku, proceed to a nearby facility being used by the bad guys in order to wipe it out. Ku is sent in first along with a special device meant to send her home - 'to meet her mother' - as the others wait to go in after. But then the whole place explodes, seemingly killing Ku and revealing how cold and ruthless Rain can be. Team RWBY withdraws from the battles that follow.
More new alternate Rubys appear – the massive Garnett, the regal Magister, and the cold RTX – as the war kicks into high gear. Rain faces off with Cinder Fall high up in the stadium, revealing a small part of her full power during the battle. Cherry, team JNPR and team CFVY defend Beacon from a wave of White Fang attackers.
Things are going well… until the Creatures of Grimm arrive. Of course, Rain planned for this as well – no less than 100 individual Ruby Roses are gathered to stand against the tide of darkness.
Ruby herself is having a harder time. Alone against Roman Torchwick, Ruby falls in battle and nearly dies… but is saved by the spirit of her mother, who proceeds to awaken the true power of the Silver Eyes. With the power of generations of warriors behind her, Ruby saves everyone in a single moment of OP glory.
With the world safe at last, the Ruby Squad says it's final goodbyes and heads home. However, it soon becomes clear that something went wrong – in the flash of light from Carmine's device, Ruby herself also disappeared.
Weiss, Blake and Yang watch in horror as their entire world is swallowed by the void…
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Act 2:
Time flows differently between worlds.
Yang is the first to arrive on Carmine's world, having missed a full three years. Blake arrives next, followed by Weiss… but something's wrong. Weiss has a mental breakdown upon arriving, giving everyone cause to worry. Carmine explains things as best she can, then they each explain their own stories.
Yang found herself stranded in Red's world, in which everyone she knows is the opposite gender. She only stayed there for a few weeks, but in that time she came to know and love the boys of that world's team RWBY as well as come to grips with the loss of her own friends.
Blake ended up on Rose's world, in which most everyone ended up in vastly different team arrangements. She stayed for a few months, forming a full relationship with Rose and also coming to terms with her exile. She also had to fight for her life against a copy of herself that, for some reason, simply melted upon being beaten.
Weiss had the most startling tale to tell – her stay lasted nearly ten years. In that time she changed her name to Snow Rosewood, settled down, got married, and even had a kid. She'd fully accepted her new life… and being pulled out of it so suddenly was a big shock.
Ruby was nowhere to be found. Yang, Blake and Weiss decided to find out why.
Ruby, as it turns out, was being dragged into different worlds without the luxury of keeping her own body – rather, she keeps waking up inside someone else's body. First as a girl called Aki in the land of Nippon, then in the subconscious of Prim, and finally as a newborn Dragon. In all of this, she barely manages to retain her memories and her identity. Her Silver Eyes seems to be the only thing holding her together.
Meanwhile, as Rain traveled around on her own, Carmine had the others visit several different worlds for smaller jobs – replacing sensors and junk. Yang ended up contracting a deadly zombie virus, Blake met a Faunus Ruby called Rosey (who had a long history herself), and Snow finally got some closure regarding her long-lost daughter.
But then time and space decided to start acting up, nearly destroying everything. In the chaos that followed, even more alternate Rubys appeared… not all of them friendly. Hair-Flowers Ruby (aka HF Ruby) and Spider-Girl were nice enough, and even Crimson Thorne was tangentially on their side, but Ruby Grace turned out to be an assassin… with Carmine as her target.
And then they got a message from the real Ruby Rose, letting them know she was still alive and that 'The Cards Are The Key.' The very same cards that hinted at the arrival of the Ruby Squad were now the target. At last they had a goal in sight.
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Chapter 46:
Untold
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Remnant-5815
(Carmine's World)
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The others were all asleep in different rooms, all exhausted from the events of their last trip. Good; Rain wanted privacy for what she needed to discuss with Blake.
She'd only gotten back a few hours ago, and Carmine's report on everything that happened was not comforting. In fact, much of it made no sense. The fact that Blake started to display signs of mental trauma had prompted Rain to bring Velvet along for this meeting to keep Blake calm.
"I've dealt with lots of patients over the years," the Faunus said quietly as they made their way to Blake's room, "but she was something else. All her emotions were tangled up, making it hard to find the one I needed to tweak and get her to calm down."
Rain paused at the door. "Can you handle this, then?"
"…yes," Velvet nodded, a grim look on her face, "I think so."
Blake's room in the clinic area was dark, yet lit by the moonlight from the window, giving everything a blue tinge. Blake herself was asleep on the bed, multiple tubes running into her arms keeping her that way. Velvet knew she could get past the drugs for at least a few minutes without damage, which was why she offered to help.
Velvet placed both hands against Blake's face, then muttered "Still so jumbled… but this one should do it." She tweaked, and Blake sat up like a machine and opened one eye – just one – and stared at her visitors without any emotion. Rain grew tense, but Velvet was on the wrong side of the bed to clearly see the look, so her expression didn't change.
Rain's apprehension only increased as she moved closer to the bed; Blake's eyes were normally a golden amber color but the eye staring at Rain was far darker, almost jet black in the moonlight.
She quickly composed herself, then held up the device Blake had allegedly used to subdue Rose after the battle, keeping it obscured from Velvet's eyes, and said, "Where did you get this?"
Blake's eye studied the device for a moment, then she simply said, "…Spoilers."
It wasn't an answer… and yet it told her everything she needed to know. Rain had been working on numerous projects during her time with Carmine, this taser device being one of them, though it wasn't actually complete yet – and yet… Blake somehow possessed a working version of it. It definitely had something to do with her time-skipping habits, but she knew that learning too much, too soon was bad for reality as a whole. Best not to press the issue, then.
Pocketing the device, Rain asked "What happened to Crimson Thorne? Carmine said she sent her with you, but only you returned."
"She never arrived in the first place," Blake said quickly, "Blake was completely alone on that world." Both Rain and Velvet blinked at the sudden shift to third-person. "But considering the monster she went up against, that was probably for the best. At least Blake could still run away; Crimson would have completely destroyed herself."
Rain felt a sudden chill. "What monster?" she demanded.
Velvet was now visibly straining as Blake focused, trying to remember. "It didn't speak, but it's name stuck in the mind – The Shade. It looked like another Ruby Rose, but… different. Like a shape without a body. The face was hidden behind a pale mask, but that was it."
That didn't sound like any Ruby Rose she'd ever seen. And Rain had seen a lot by this point. "…What actually happened there?"
A pause. "…Can't remember clearly. Images and emotions mixed together. I remember… terror. Panic. Madness. Simply being too close to the creature was enough to send Blake into fits of insanity. What I can say is that the thing was unkillable."
Rain suppressed a shudder.
"Blake shot at the thing several times as she tried to get away, but each shot that hit… somehow transferred to her own body, exactly the same wounds; no damage to the thing itself. Near the end it tried to reach out and touch her, but she screamed and jumped back while trying to cut it's hand off… her own hand fell off instead. I had to take over and get her out of there with her Scroll's return program."
"You had to…?"
"No one else was alive in that world," Blake interrupted, her voice cold and her one black eye glaring. "Everyone else was dead, without exception. Either Carmine's computer lied to her, or she lied to us."
For several tense moments, no one spoke. Blake stared blankly ahead, Rain thought, and Velvet waited.
"Put her back under," Rain finally spoke, and Velvet nodded with a sigh of relief. She tweaked again, and Blake calmly went back to sleep.
Somehow, Rain ended up with even more questions than she had before. What kind of monstrous Ruby could be so grossly overpowered? Not only did she… it… turn back every attack, but it could cause madness? Something like that could not be allowed to exist. It would not.
"Rain?" Velvet said carefully, "You okay?"
The ancient Ruby shook her head. "Yeah, I'm good. Sorry for dragging you out here like this. Blake was-"
"That wasn't Blake."
Rain paused, looking perplexed. "…what do you mean?"
"I know the difference between conscious and subconscious thought when I'm tweaking. The Blake you just spoke to was neither of those. To be honest… it almost felt like I was somehow in direct contact with her Aura."
That might explain Blake's eye color being different. "Well, I'll let you mull that over. I've got work to do."
"Such as?"
Rain sighed as she said "If Crimson never even arrived, that means something went wrong with the transport. I should be able to find out what if I dig into the code far enough. If I'm lucky, I might even find out where she ended up."
"And this… 'Shade' creature?"
As Rain started walking away, she grabbed a pen and scribbled a fourth line on her palm. "Leave that to me. After I figure out where Crimson went, I have a monster to hunt down."
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Unknown Location
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Crimson could almost remember a time when she was just plain old Ruby Rose. Heh…seemed like a lifetime ago…
Then the world ended. All her friends were brutally murdered, and she lost an eye, not necessarily in that order. That was the point where she dropped her innocence and, many would agree, her sanity. After all, how could anyone face the horrors of the machines and not break? Simple; you just had to be broken already.
Of course, that was when shit got properly weird; first she'd simply(?) gone back in time and met her past self in an attempt to change her future. It seemed to work for a bit, but then she tried to go back and… missed. Somehow she ended up in another version of her past world, but this one filled to the fucking brim with Ruby Rose clones. Seriously? How much rum did she drink to reach that circle of hell?
But of course it didn't end there. After getting black-out drunk again ("again"? Hehe…funny joke.), Crimson once again ended up in the wrong Beacon, only this time with a few different clones and one leftover; the dog girl Rosey. Then, after a few more drinks she stepped onto a platform that was supposed to take her one place-
…Only for her to come out into another lab, face-to-face with a woman who could pass as herself in another 15 years: eyepatch, one robotic arm, face carved out of granite… yet still undeniably Ruby Rose underneath.
Just behind the woman stood that hooded bitch who tried to kill Glasses. They called her Ruby Grace. Kid still looked as smug as she did just before her escape. …also, Blake was nowhere to be found.
Trapped with the bad guys. Great… where's a solid object to repeatedly bash your head against when you really needed it?
Or hard liquor. Either worked, honestly.
"You are called Crimson Thorne, correct? Welcome. You may call me Vermilion."
All Crimson could growl was "Fucking Goliath BALLS…!"
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What About Roman and Neo…?
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They'd been sitting in this jail cell for three days now, and Roman was getting bored.
Three days ago, both he and Neo had arrived in yet another world that was not their own. Sure it still looked as dark and awesome as Vale usually did at night, but something about it was… hard to put his finger on. It seemed… well, even darker, if that was possible. He was pretty sure it was still Vale, but… not much else.
Neo sat across from him, fiddling with her fingers as she'd been doing for two and a half days straight. They literally had nothing else to do. It didn't help that both of them had been fitted with special collars that, apparently, suppressed their Aura. Combined with the loss of their clothes and personal effects upon being thrown into this old-fashioned prison cell, Roman and Neo were well and truly stuck.
Ah, just like the old days.
The guards were having a shift change, and Roman couldn't help wondering what would happen to the two of them. It seemed like ages ago that he and Neo were violently ripped away from normal reality and thrown into an ongoing series of drug-induced dream worlds. Neo had been hitting the buttons of her device rather desperately in these last few trips, and upon arriving here the machine started to spark and fizzle something nasty. If they'd broken it, that was seriously bad news for them! Though it was among the items these police guys had taken away, so at least there was still a chance they could get it back.
Sudden activity interrupted Roman's thoughts as their new guards received a message on their earpieces, then barked, "On your feet, prisoners!" He could just about hear the sound of several people heading their way down the hall.
Oh boy… must be the head honcho on his way to see them. Neo stood to her feet first, her face grim. Roman casually stood and joined her just as the big double doors opened to admit…
Themselves?!
Well, shit. Here we go again…
Roman And Neo In Prison Clothes watched with a look of resigned annoyance as Roman And Neo In Formal Army Attire stood shocked. Clearly they weren't expecting to see themselves captured and imprisoned, and Roman simply knew their captors didn't bother trying to explain what was going on. To anybody.
Neo In Formal Army Attire recovered first and, much to Roman's total shock, said the first words he'd ever heard from the multicolored woman; "I'd almost forgotten what I looked like at that age..."
She had a surprisingly nice voice.
Roman In Formal Army Attire replied "You don't even know what you look like now."
It was then that Roman noticed a key difference beyond the outfits – these two were older. At least a decade older, by his best guess. Older Neo seemed slightly taller, but that was likely due to her heeled boots versus the barefoot Neo standing next to him. Older Roman had a few extra wrinkles around the eyes and a few strands of gray in his ginger hair, but beyond that there was no mistaking the identity of the pair before them.
"I'd say we could explain," Roman began to say, "…but I don't know what's going on either-"
"You can explain when you arrive at Haven," Older Roman interrupted. It was odd to hear his own voice cutting him off. "Until then, save your breath."
"…Haven?"
"We don't have much authority in Vale," Older Neo explained, "You'll be transferred to Mistral first, then we can talk as long as you like."
"Forgive me for doubting such a… trustworthy pair," Roman said before they walked away, "but… what difference does Haven make? 'Authority'? You two?"
Older Roman and Older Neo exchanged a look, then a slight grin, before Older Roman replied. "We are the highest authority in Mistral, I'll have you know. They only called us to Vale because they apparently caught two scoundrels trying to pose as us. I guess they figured we'd be amused."
This time it was Roman And Neo In Prison Clothes who were stunned. Of all people to reach a position like that… them ? Seriously?!
Older Roman walked out of the room, but Older Neo stopped and gave Roman a Look™️. One of those looks that made the man shudder against his will.
Out of excitement, mind you. Not fear.
Definitely not fear.
She smiled, licked her lips and purred "Whaddya say, big fella; should I give you a strip-search before we go?"
From next to him, Neo shuffled over and stood between Roman and Older Neo and hissed.
"It's okay, sweetie…," she chuckled, "…I'll let you watch.~"
Neo suddenly turned as red as That Damn Kid's cloak. Older Neo simply laughed and walked out of the room.
Roman sat back down and sighed deeply, his mind and body exhausted. Bad enough that he had to deal with one Neo all the time (and it wasn't too bad, to be honest) – but now he had to deal with two, and one of them could talk…?
What the hell was he in for? And would they ever get out of it?
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A/N: To be fair, even the canon story ended up veering pretty far from where it looked like things were going at the end of volume 2. I know they didn't do anything with a multiverse, but still.
To the three readers I didn't lose yet, thank you for sticking around. I've always had a habit of starting on shit that I simply cannot finish, and any little support helps keep me motivated to reach the end. This is the biggest project I've ever worked on, and while I know it won't win me any awards or paychecks of any kind, it's still important to me to actually finish the damn thing. So thank you again for sticking around. And lots of gratitude for my beta reader The Layman – you are awesome. (Layman: XD 3)
I would give credits for the Roman & Neo segment, but that world technically doesn't exist yet. I'll explain later.
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